162 REMINISCENCES OF 



am happy to say that the horror, sea sickness, has 

 not fallen very heavily on any of us, though of course 

 there were times when we did not feel very much 

 inclined to smoke a sure sign of not being quite 

 right. My brother, Billy Hutchinson and Greatorex 

 saw us fairly off in fact, did not leave until the pilot 

 returned on the Friday morning. 



" After getting out of the Channel we made a 

 good run to the Straits of Gibraltar, and the first 

 few days being calm, we all got into our sea-work 

 very fairly. We got on fairly until the 3Oth, when 

 we were off ; but ever since the wind has been dead 

 ahead, and Heaven only knows when we should 

 have got to Malta (being this morning twenty miles 

 from Goys), when to our delight a steamer appeared 

 and took us in tow at 5.30, and we are now proceed- 

 ing at about seven knots an hour towards Malta. 

 Oh, I have begun this sheet of paper all wrong. 



" The ship is a good roomy one, but not a clipper 

 by any means. The Captain, Eagles by name, is a 

 very nice fellow, and we all get on very well. We 

 have on board besides my brother a Scotch assistant- 

 surgeon (Cowan), very canny, and an Irish vet. vice 

 Seymour (Power), quite a wild Pat, without a stitch 

 of uniform or comforts of any sort, and with a 

 monstrous brogue and an unbounded confidence in 

 his own abilities at whist playing in which game 

 he is singularly deficient in anything but luck. 



" The men and horses have all been well, and 

 except a few big legs (' Sphinx ' among them from a 

 kick) there is nothing much the matter. 



